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Saturday, September 15, 2012

Hi. I am somewhat still alive, although I do find myself struggling to breathe under these mountains of homework. I also have a fairly annoying cold. I'm probably overworking myself. Compared to everyone else, though, I feel like I'm hardly working at all. My motivation is a bit lacking. That, and some of my homework assignments are, well, stupid.
My English class this year is focused a lot around writing. It's a fabulous idea. We have a writing assignment nearly every night. We learn different techniques to improve our writing, like parallelism and verb play. We even get "writing buddies", which is basically the same concept of a critique partner except sometimes we actually have to actually write things together. The creative writing assignments are, in my opinion, horrible.
I'm not sure if I'm the only one (I seem to be at my school) but I have a great deal of trouble writing about myself (writing a blog post about myself is totally different).
Here is a list of some of the assignments I've had recently:
-Write about an ideal dream you have
-Write about a scary experience you've had
-Write about a person you admire

...you get the picture. Writing these essays is doing a toll on my confidence as a writer. I don't think that I'm anywhere near being an excellent writer and I'm not looking for people to reassure me. It's just...I've written hundreds of thousands more words than my friends have and hell, I do it all for fun. Why would these 500 and less word essays stress me out? Why does everything I turn in feel like absolute rubbish? I want to cry. I want to lay down in my bed and wrap myself in my blankets so tightly that all of the negative feelings are squeezed out. Earlier this summer, I came to peace with the decision that I want to be a writer. There's nothing I love doing more, nothing else that I feel I invest the rest of my life in. Some might say these assignments are good for me. I'm learning how to deal with self doubt. I'm learning to write stuff I don't care about. I'm learning new techniques. Bla bla bla.
I tried looking at it that way but I still feel awful.
Some of my sadness could be from not being able to work on my MS for what feels like months. I'm running very behind on my schedule, and the guilt of not working on it is breaking me, but the guilt of working on it instead of my homework would be even worse. It's getting to the point where I've forgotten how really writing makes me feel. I'm gaining all sorts of negative connotations toward it because of these exercises. And that is killing me.
Also, it's been a long time since I've read a good book (or any book, for that matter). I always get a bit fuzzy around the edges when I'm not able to read.
Have you ever had to deal with something like this? What do you think? Is it a sign that maybe I'm not as cut out for writing as I initially thought? (I'm never going to give up, I promise.)
Anyway, that is what is up with me. Hope everyone else is doing well. And if you're not, hang in there. I have this immortal belief that things will always get better if you wait long enough. Some call it hope.

"Read books. Care about things. Get excited. Try not to be too down on yourself. Enjoy the ever present game of knowing." --Hank Green

"Don't feel stupid if you don't like what everyone else pretends to love." --Emma Watson